5 ms·

Its amazing how much nicer most European cities have become since the '80s. The wall was one thing, but the general crime, grime and sense of decay was almost a

by fergie 9y ago

Its amazing how much nicer most European cities have become since the '80s. The wall was one thing, but the general crime, grime and sense of decay was almost as bad.

mseebach 9y ago
New York went through the same transformation. It's a "general" culture shift, suburbs went out of fashion for generation X. No sure what the exact underlying dynamic driving it was, but it's happened, as you note, more or less in tandem across Europe and US during the 90s and into the 00s.
- woodpanel 9y ago
  Maybe the 1980s Bronx was comparable in terms of deterioration but the "general cultural shift" definitely didn't affect any inner city of Western Europe in the ways which can be seen in the aforementioned videos there. Quite the opposite: Yes, suburbs flourished, but the appalling differences between East and West prove it has nothing to do with suburbanization. And the pictures of East German inner cities prove something else: That class differences still existed. Like only government-loyal members of society get to live in Pyongyang, all the Eastern German "white trash" would be found in those inner cities. People with connections had an easier time getting into new High-Rises being built at the city outskirts.
  - hellofunk 9y ago
    A lot more than the Bronx. Most of NYC, including many parts of downtown Manhattan, the East and West villages, huge swaths of Brooklyn, all have gone through extraordinary changes since their grim, gritty days of the 1980s.
- ghaff 9y ago
  It’s not so much that suburbs went out of fashion. There’s been plenty of growth in suburbs surrounding affluent and growing cities. It’s more that some cities became cool again, many of which were shrinking as late as the 1990s. This is true even of cities like Boston.
  - mseebach 9y ago
    I have no sources or data, so big grain of salt, but the dynamic as I heard it referenced was basically that Gen X developed "suburban angst" and sought out the rougher/more authentic life in the cities. This is not incompatible with suburbs remaining popular in general, they just fell a bit out of favour with a certain culturally influential group.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      Five Thirty Eight has run some pieces on this. [1] It's difficult because the best data doesn't track relatively rapidly changing behavior very well. However, one conclusion seems to be that it's mostly a fairly narrow demographic (college-educated Millennials) who are "flocking" (but that's an exaggeration) to a handful of mostly coastal dense urban cores. Most of the overall urban growth from the census is, in fact, in the suburbs. My 7,000 person town where my neighbors and I split about 100 acres is considered urban by the census. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less-urban-than-you-think/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-les...
woodpanel 9y ago
Absolutely. The decay was grim. Take Leipzig for example, once one of the trade centers of Germany and what it became after 40 years of socialism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cDOqb53Kfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cDOqb53Kfk [1] And mind you, that when we're speaking about Eastern Europe, we're talking about the more prosperous part of the communist bloc. [1] granted, WW2 left its mark as well but Western Germany started with the same handicap and didn't turn it's inner cities into Favelas.
- quakeguy 9y ago
  Another example is Stralsund at the baltic sea, it looked unreal with all the decay and soot-tinted houses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPf7Y903fw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPf7Y903fw
  - odiroot 9y ago
    Stralsund is one of the prettier cities I have visited in Germany. Even plattenbau there is not so bad. I'd take it any day over most parts of West Berlin.
- novalis78 9y ago
  That's communism for you right there. Did not someone once project the Eastern Bloc would collapse x-years in the future when communism had eaten up all communal resources and the buildings themselves would not get repaired anymore. Looks like that was the end.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > Western Germany started with the same handicap It depends. Some counter-points: - Western Germany had all (or at least nearly all) of Germany's supply of black coal, the energy source that powered nearly all of Germany back in the day. East Germany only had brown coal, which has a worse energy density and is more complicated to mine and use e.g. because of the water contained in it. Over the lifespan of the GDR, about 40% of all investments in industry went into the energy sector as they tried to make brown coal more efficient and build nuclear reactors. - While the Western allies realized fairly early on that it makes more sense for them to integrate West Germany into their political and economical networks, East Germany had to pay huge amounts of reparations to the Soviets. Entire factories and hundreds of kilometers of rail tracks were disassembled and shipped to Russia. [1] That also took decades to recover from. [1] While motivated by an understandable desire for a payback on the part of the Soviets (who suffered millions of casualties during the war), this was an incredibly stupid move for the Soviets: A lot of those reparations got lost to their "brother countries" through which stuff was shipped to the Soviet Union, and when machines managed to arrive in the Soviet Union, they often lacked qualified personnel to operate them. And, of course, it also reduced competitiveness of the GDR (and, therefore, of the Communist bloc as a whole).
tnolet 9y ago
The area on the pictures around the Leuschnerdamm and Bethaniendamm is a really nice area. Rent prices are OK-ish and there is a good balance of cool places / restaurants nearby and just normal housing and families. Just recently moved away from that neighbourhood but kinda miss it.

by fergie 9y ago

Its amazing how much nicer most European cities have become since the '80s. The wall was one thing, but the general crime, grime and sense of decay was almost as bad.

mseebach 9y ago

New York went through the same transformation. It's a "general" culture shift, suburbs went out of fashion for generation X. No sure what the exact underlying dynamic driving it was, but it's happened, as you note, more or less in tandem across Europe and US during the 90s and into the 00s.

woodpanel 9y ago
Maybe the 1980s Bronx was comparable in terms of deterioration but the "general cultural shift" definitely didn't affect any inner city of Western Europe in the ways which can be seen in the aforementioned videos there. Quite the opposite: Yes, suburbs flourished, but the appalling differences between East and West prove it has nothing to do with suburbanization. And the pictures of East German inner cities prove something else: That class differences still existed. Like only government-loyal members of society get to live in Pyongyang, all the Eastern German "white trash" would be found in those inner cities. People with connections had an easier time getting into new High-Rises being built at the city outskirts.
- hellofunk 9y ago
  A lot more than the Bronx. Most of NYC, including many parts of downtown Manhattan, the East and West villages, huge swaths of Brooklyn, all have gone through extraordinary changes since their grim, gritty days of the 1980s.
ghaff 9y ago
It’s not so much that suburbs went out of fashion. There’s been plenty of growth in suburbs surrounding affluent and growing cities. It’s more that some cities became cool again, many of which were shrinking as late as the 1990s. This is true even of cities like Boston.
- mseebach 9y ago
  I have no sources or data, so big grain of salt, but the dynamic as I heard it referenced was basically that Gen X developed "suburban angst" and sought out the rougher/more authentic life in the cities. This is not incompatible with suburbs remaining popular in general, they just fell a bit out of favour with a certain culturally influential group.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Five Thirty Eight has run some pieces on this. [1] It's difficult because the best data doesn't track relatively rapidly changing behavior very well. However, one conclusion seems to be that it's mostly a fairly narrow demographic (college-educated Millennials) who are "flocking" (but that's an exaggeration) to a handful of mostly coastal dense urban cores. Most of the overall urban growth from the census is, in fact, in the suburbs. My 7,000 person town where my neighbors and I split about 100 acres is considered urban by the census. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less-urban-than-you-think/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-les...

woodpanel 9y ago

Absolutely. The decay was grim. Take Leipzig for example, once one of the trade centers of Germany and what it became after 40 years of socialism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cDOqb53Kfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cDOqb53Kfk [1] And mind you, that when we're speaking about Eastern Europe, we're talking about the more prosperous part of the communist bloc. [1] granted, WW2 left its mark as well but Western Germany started with the same handicap and didn't turn it's inner cities into Favelas.

quakeguy 9y ago
Another example is Stralsund at the baltic sea, it looked unreal with all the decay and soot-tinted houses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPf7Y903fw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPf7Y903fw
- odiroot 9y ago
  Stralsund is one of the prettier cities I have visited in Germany. Even plattenbau there is not so bad. I'd take it any day over most parts of West Berlin.
novalis78 9y ago
That's communism for you right there. Did not someone once project the Eastern Bloc would collapse x-years in the future when communism had eaten up all communal resources and the buildings themselves would not get repaired anymore. Looks like that was the end.
majewsky 9y ago
> Western Germany started with the same handicap It depends. Some counter-points: - Western Germany had all (or at least nearly all) of Germany's supply of black coal, the energy source that powered nearly all of Germany back in the day. East Germany only had brown coal, which has a worse energy density and is more complicated to mine and use e.g. because of the water contained in it. Over the lifespan of the GDR, about 40% of all investments in industry went into the energy sector as they tried to make brown coal more efficient and build nuclear reactors. - While the Western allies realized fairly early on that it makes more sense for them to integrate West Germany into their political and economical networks, East Germany had to pay huge amounts of reparations to the Soviets. Entire factories and hundreds of kilometers of rail tracks were disassembled and shipped to Russia. [1] That also took decades to recover from. [1] While motivated by an understandable desire for a payback on the part of the Soviets (who suffered millions of casualties during the war), this was an incredibly stupid move for the Soviets: A lot of those reparations got lost to their "brother countries" through which stuff was shipped to the Soviet Union, and when machines managed to arrive in the Soviet Union, they often lacked qualified personnel to operate them. And, of course, it also reduced competitiveness of the GDR (and, therefore, of the Communist bloc as a whole).

tnolet 9y ago

The area on the pictures around the Leuschnerdamm and Bethaniendamm is a really nice area. Rent prices are OK-ish and there is a good balance of cool places / restaurants nearby and just normal housing and families. Just recently moved away from that neighbourhood but kinda miss it.